20616: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Silence of church is questioned (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Mar. 20, 2004


CRISIS IN HAITI | RELIGION'S ROLE


Silence of church is questioned

Haiti's Roman Catholic church remained largely silent as former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was accused of widespread human rights abuses.

BY JOE MOZINGO

jmozingo@herald.com


JACMEL, Haiti - Whether preaching to peasants in mountain chapels or on
radio to reach decision makers, Jacmel Bishop Guire Poulard has steadfastly
condemned the killings in Haiti and the president he accuses of allowing
them to flourish.

''This government was a disgrace,'' Poulard said at his home overlooking the
Caribbean last weekend. Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, he added,
``was corrupt and promoted nothing but violence and drug trafficking.''

But within the upper reaches of the church, Poulard has been on his own in
his attacks against Aristide, himself a former Salesian priest.

Roman Catholic church leaders remained silent in the last few months about
the increasingly violent reign of Aristide's Lavalas Family Party and the
gunmen who attacked opposition leaders and marches, drawing the ire of human
rights activists and many lay church members.

''As a Catholic, I'm appalled that the church has not come out against the
state-sponsored violence in Haiti,'' said Charles Henri Baker, a businessman
and leader of a civil coalition that opposed Aristide. ``They knew where the
violence was coming from, and they didn't say anything.''

CHURCH'S ATTEMPT

The Catholic Conference of Bishops tried to reach a compromise between
Aristide and the opposition in December last year, denouncing all violence
and calling for reconciliation but not pointing fingers.

When Pope John Paul II addressed the ''worrisome and painful'' situation in
Haiti on Feb. 29, just hours before news broke that Aristide had resigned
and fled the country, he made no reference to the president or the terror he
spread.

''The church is very slow regarding the situation in Haiti,'' said Pierre
Esperance of the National Coalition of Haitian Rights. ``We had a lot of
people dying at the hands of Lavalas.''

The Catholic church always has occupied a tenuous position in this
impoverished country, where religion and politics feed off each other. Since
independence 200 years ago, rulers have championed the church to appease the
elites and railed against it to reap the support of the poor.

OFFICIAL SUPPORT

Today, the government helps pay the priests' salaries and finance church
charities and construction projects. When Aristide was reelected in 2000, he
increased the state's contribution to priests' salaries fivefold.

This porous line between church and state historically has put the clergy in
awkward positions when government death squads start hunting in the night.

''They were in a bind,'' said Edouard Paultre, secretary general of the
Protestant Federation of Haiti, which relentlessly criticized Aristide.
``They had to preach against the violence. But they had to be careful
because they are the state's church.''

Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, the top Catholic official in Haiti, said the
church's response has been appropriate.

''The church has always denounced violence,'' he said. But he never spoke
out against government killings because there was no proof, he added. ``We
can't denounce someone if we don't know who did it.''

But the church has never been a monolith.

Priests and nuns who work in the most squalid of slums, feeding the poor and
running clinics where no other institutions will venture, saw the aftermath
of the Lavalas killings. And many spoke out against them.

JUSTICE DEMANDED

Among others, Father Max Dominique, 64, openly denounced ''terrorism of the
state'' and demanded justice, not just reconciliation.

''Otherwise you have impunity,'' he said in an interview at his home in the
capital suburb of Carrefour.

In 1986, when Dominique came back from 17 years of exile for criticizing the
Duvalier family dictatorships, he got to know Aristide. Both were priests of
a social justice movement called the Ti Legliz, Little Church, Haiti's brand
of the liberation theology that emerged throughout Latin America.

Aristide had a complicated relationship with the church. He was kicked out
of the Salesian order and condemned by the bishops for ``preaching violence
and class warfare.''

But when word got out that he was going to be sent out of the country,
thousands of people showed up at the burned-out remains of his old church to
protest. The transfer never took place.

SUPPORTED CANDIDACY

Dominique was concerned about Aristide's violent liturgies and talk of class
war, but he supported him anyway in his run for president in 1990.

''He crystallized the movement of justice for the poor,'' Dominique said.

Aristide was toppled by an army coup in 1991 and was restored to power in
1994 by U.S. troops. When he was reelected in 2000 after disputed elections,
supporters within the church began to criticize him.

William Smart, a priest and one of the founders of Lavalas, urged Haitians
in May to reject a constitutional amendment that would have given Aristide
more time in office.

In January, Dominique accused Aristide of ''presenting himself as a
messiah'' figure. Father Joachin Samedi called for ``Aristide the dragon to
be hunted.''

Still, Aristide retained a working relationship with the church leadership.

''You must understand, there is a contract between the church and state,''
Archbishop Miot said, referring to an 1860 agreement. ``The state has an
obligation to support the church.''

Bishop Poulard thinks the church's tepid response cost many Haitian lives.

''If the church had taken a strong position from the very beginning, this
catastrophe would have been avoided,'' he said.

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